The new house is FINALLY started......

[Double D]

Awesome!! Do you have an estimated move-in date in mind?

Also, do you already have your deck designed? I have done some neat deck ideas/builds and can provide drawings. Pro-Bono for you brother!

[jkski]

Thanks man, I may have to take you up on that. The deck was completely drawn on the plans and is pretty straight forward as it is all one level to allow for maximum headroom underneath and to minimize and obstruction of view when sitting inside. The plans are drawn for a deck that begins by the front door porch, extends out 6 feet from the house and follows the contour around to the side by the master bedroom slider where it opens up into a large rectangle measuring roughly 20x25 (dimensions are not exact here). The problem I am running into right now when visualizing it it how the deck will tie into the front porch area and look right (the difference between drawings and practical application I guess). I will try to post a pic of the blueprint showing how it is drawn.

[jkski]

Estimated move-in date is likely to be the end of April. The drywall finish should be done by the first week of March and then we start painting/staining before the carpenter comes in to all of his work, which I am not certain how long that will take. Sometime after the painting I will start working on the tile flooring and then as the carpenter finishes I will put down the hardwood (trying to avoid it getting beat-up in the final stages of construction).
So, given that a good portion of the next wave of work involves me, the process will naturally slow a bit. Good news is I have plenty of time saved-up to take off and tackle everything so that should help to lessen the lag before the finish carpenter can get to work.

[SkiDog]

I haven't seen your plans so I may be speaking outa turn here. If you have a wooden deck like on a second level, and a porch or something under it that you would like to use when its raining, "Trex" decking, makes a product called "Rain escape". Its a product that goes inbetween the floor joists of the upper deck and causes the rain water to drain into a catch basin and then dumps into a gutter. Its cool. Don't know if you have a use for that or not though.
http://trexrainescape.com/

The other thing I was gonna tell you is this: remember the last 10% of the job, is 90% of the work!

[McDuff71]

House looks great! Very interesting to a builder nerd from Australia.
The difference in construction between Australia and the states is crazy. There is no way Australians want sidings or cladding, everything has to be clay bricks or they don't want it. We obviously don't have the same thermal/insulating issues.
I am in the states to check out builders Seattle and Dallas next month, hope it gets a bit warmer for me though, I am a soft Aussie!

[jkski]

Originally Posted by SkiDog

I haven't seen your plans so I may be speaking outa turn here. If you have a wooden deck like on a second level, and a porch or something under it that you would like to use when its raining, "Trex" decking, makes a product called "Rain escape". Its a product that goes inbetween the floor joists of the upper deck and causes the rain water to drain into a catch basin and then dumps into a gutter. Its cool. Don't know if you have a use for that or not though.
http://trexrainescape.com/

The other thing I was gonna tell you is this: remember the last 10% of the job, is 90% of the work!

Thanks for the info, that is exactly what I am looking to do with the area under the deck. When we were designing it we knew there was no good way to put a truly functional roof over the deck area without sacrificing the look of the front of the house so we planned to make the "in case it rains" gathering place, under the deck area. I have gone back and forth between trex and treated lumber and although the treated comes with maintenance, I have been leaning towards it due to the cost aspect but this trex product may sway me the other way. I am waiting until the project is done before I make my final decision so that I can see where we stand financially, worst case scenario, I will simply add a temp stairway to the 2 doors coming off of the house where the deck would be and I wil hold-off on building it until the funds allow it to be done the right way.

I agree with your statement, all of the work done to this point is literally behind the walls, masked where nobody can see it so now the devil is truly in the details. We are fortunate in that we are in no hurry or on any specific timeline to move in. Our current home is on the market but if it should sell we have options. The things we do next are the things we will see everyday and truly regret if they are not done right!

[jkski]

Drywall sure goes up fast! I don't know if it is the crew we have or if drywall always goes up this fast but I took the guys doughnuts at 7am yesterday morning and was back at the house for a meeting at 4pm only to find that they are about 80% done with the inside of the house! Truly an amazing transformation as the rooms really took shape today....and it is a little harder to get good picture angles now!
So, they will finish-up today and the finish guys start on Monday!

Enjoy.

[Ben]

I never looked into the fancy under deck systems as someone told me it was expensive and my dad confirmed after research.

We used metal roofing upside down (many colors, mine matches the trim on the house). I made a lattice of treated 2x2's to give it pitch. Then ran it all to a gutter on the steel beam supporting my deck. Very happy. Paid itself off when I drank my first cold beverage under it in the rain.

Great thread BTW, looks like fun.

[Double D]

Originally Posted by jkski

Drywall sure goes up fast! I don't know if it is the crew we have or if drywall always goes up this fast but I took the guys doughnuts at 7am yesterday morning and was back at the house for a meeting at 4pm only to find that they are about 80% done with the inside of the house! Truly an amazing transformation as the rooms really took shape today....and it is a little harder to get good picture angles now!
So, they will finish-up today and the finish guys start on Monday!

Enjoy.

Great! Make sure they have enough screws in it. And I mean screws, not nails. When I built my house I went in after the drywall guys were finished hanging and inspected all the sheets to see if there was any flexing or gaps between the board and the stud, and I found them everywhere. I also found they used mostly nails around the edges and a few screws through the middle. Not acceptable! I then spent 6 hours and almost a thousand screws and went through the entire house securing and adding, everywhere!

I know some groups will glue it as well but that would not change what I did.

They always tell you to expect nail pops.... Not me. I had maybe 2 in all. If they do the job right the first time there are no reason for nail pops... The muding crew wasn't too happy with all the extra spots to cover but o'well....

Then, depending on how your house is built you have to be careful of the drywall connection joint between the second floor internal walls and the trusses. I have full trusses for my roof and the internal walls dont support any of them. So when its warm the trusses are settled down, close to the top of the walls. But when it gets cold out the trusses will rise up and pull away from the walls so the corners need to have some flex space. So what they are supposed to do is keep the ceiling nails/screws away from the walls so the drywall can flex as it rises. I have one (1) spot that is obvious each winter in my bedroom. Summertime there is no gap. As it gets colder the gap appears and then it could be as big a 1/8" during the coldest times.

The fact that your building in winter may help you since they would already be raised up....

[jkski]

Great advice as always DD. It is funny you mention the gap because I have one in my current house that I am sure has always been there but I just never noticed until we were getting it ready for sale. I thought I had a major problem but now that you mention this it certainly sets my mind at ease and makes sense.
I will be there tomorrow looking at the screw placement and adding as needed, then we are off for a lil needed R-n-R (ridin' and relaxing in the UP for a couple of days)!